Make Blizzard IV instant. Here's why:

[Malevicton]

I don't think you're examples are very good. If you hit Benediction or Hallowed Ground it goes off. It might be too late, but it registers. Using B4 3 seconds out, then having to interrupt, will require another ~3 seconds. So now its plan further ahead just in case. Interrupt twice and now you need more than 6 seconds, and so on. Also, no BLM was not always played this way. In 2.X, AFIII falls off you put it back up with a single cast. Enochian falls off and you're using you're 2.0 rotation for 30 seconds...

Oh c'mon, your argument against the examples is semantic. As for planning ahead based on 3 interrupted casts... if your cast is interrupted 3 times then you didn't plan ahead.

[Yeldir]

Other blm, myself included, can maintain effective enochian uptime, enough at least to remain competitive.

So can I; and I never said I couldn't. I use and even described the strategies you're throwing at me to mitigate the problems of Enochian in prior posts. You're not telling me anything I haven't said myself. Your reply is full of "huh, I guess you're not as good as me", but you never really address my primary concern:

The Black Mages of today has to do far more and gets less for it, and when they screw up, I stand by my claim that they're punished harder than any other class.

... All of those complaints have pretty much always been true, they've just been exacerbated by the expansion.

What? If I screwed up my Blizzard three, I just had to press convert, and I'd be back on my feet in several seconds. If it wasn't up, you always had transpose available. If I screw up Enochian, there's no recourse open to me. I can't do anything to recover what I've lost. I have to wait thirty seconds, and I'm a drag on whatever raid I'm in until then. There was no punishment mechanic like this in 1.0, 2.0, or anything in between. Black Mage was an incredibly easy class to play for almost all of 2.0.

Again, I should restate my concern to you, as you don't seem to even touch it in any of your responses: Black Mage difficulty does not presently match Black Mage reward. If you disagree with that based on personal experience, look to the people around you, their parses and perhaps consider that maybe the melee you raid with isn't all it could be.

Spelley: Thanks! That was quite informative.

[Waliel]

I want to see this magical BLM with over 13000 MP and enough SS to fit Firestarter + 4xF4 + B3 inside ten seconds without Ley Lines.

[Malevicton]

Again, I should restate my concern to you, as you don't seem to even touch it in any of your responses: Black Mage difficulty does not presently match Black Mage reward.

But you're trying to compare a subjective metric (difficulty) to an objective reward (dps numbers). I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I disagree and we can both be right.

[MetaRed]

While I agree blizzard 4 needs some kind of adjustment I don't think the answer is instant casting it... Reason being is that it's actually fairly decent potency and if you could just spam it instant cast non stop and refresh umbral ice it might not be balanced properly.

A lot of BLMs are saving their swift cast for the "oh crap I have 2 seconds left to refresh enochain" moment that happens pretty often.

I think you would need to look at other secondary effects if you just were to just make a spell instant cast.

[spelley]

While I agree blizzard 4 needs some kind of adjustment I don't think the answer is instant casting it... Reason being is that it's actually fairly decent potency and if you could just spam it instant cast non stop and refresh umbral ice it might not be balanced properly.

I am probably completely ignorant, but doesn't Blizzard 4 reset the Enochian timer minus some amount of time? So you'd end up just going B4+B4+B4+B4 (enochian falls off), or does it have a limit to how low it will refresh the timer to? And that would still end up being significantly lower DPS than even a basic F3 -> F1 + procs?

[Psycofang]

I want to see this magical BLM with over 13000 MP and enough SS to fit Firestarter + 4xF4 + B3 inside ten seconds without Ley Lines.

I do too because after that claim I've yet to see a parse nor stats to show that somehow this dude is getting EIGHT FIRE FOURS per rotation inside of a ten second timer.

What is this genie magic.

Most I can get with leylines stacking ss food, convert, swift cast is 7 and its cutting it close and you have to use all of your tools during a burst phase to achieve this.

I am probably completely ignorant, but doesn't Blizzard 4 reset the Enochian timer minus some amount of time? So you'd end up just going B4+B4+B4+B4 (enochian falls off), or does it have a limit to how low it will refresh the timer to? And that would still end up being significantly lower DPS than even a basic F3 -> F1 + procs?

Dont ever do that each time you do you lose 5 seconds on each refresh until enochian kills itself and the CD hasn't had tome to come off, effectively screwing yourself. Also you aren't factoring in the +80% to Af3 fires you might as well f4/1 burn till enochian drops.

[zamo]

I think instant cast is going too far, perhaps a reduced cast time would be better, but instant? Seems like too much.

[Verius_Nox]

Yeah let's pretend all of these problems do not affect other DPS classes as well. Boss goes missing? GL3 drops,twin drops. bye bye 42% damage and 0.4sec GCD reduction. BoTD drops, byebye 270 potency. Huton drops.

And let's pretend other DPS classes do not have to move in-between rotations to avoid boss mechanics. I don't see blms complaining in Ravana EX when they can just stand there and dps like nobody's business during warlord shell phases or during any of the seeing ___ phases.

Except it doesn't take very long to get back to GL3, especially now with the new toys. Even then, not having GL3 doesn't change your entire rotation completely until you have it. You're not locked out of GL3 for 30sec. Huton dropping is also another poor comparison considering ninjutsus can be cast every 20sec but most of the time if it drops you have your ninjutsu coming up very soon, ninjas have a finisher that refreshes the duration, and not having Huton does not change your entire rotation.

The only comparable version you had was BoTD, which can be fairly annoying when it does drop mid-boss jump, or invulnerability but it's less as common of an occurrence because it gets extended by completing a 3rd step combo, which are instant, and the bosses so far in this game have been pretty melee friendly, barring perhaps Ravana Ex at certain intervals, but it's not difficult to deal with and doesn't disrupt your flow if you know his rotation.

Lastly, no where in his entire post did he say that the supposed problems do not affect other DPS classes, that is entirely your strawman.

As for the topic at hand, I don't think making Blizzard IV instant is the wisest choice. Assuming you B3 with some mana left over, and you instant B4, you might not have full/near full mana before the GCD finishes, and you're wasting Enochian time jerking around.

I think the real fixes should be looked at QoL, like extending AF/UI buffs to 12s.

But none of this matters much until we see what the big boss has in store for making Thunder actually relevant to our rotation.

[Malevicton]

Dont ever do that each time you do you lose 5 seconds on each refresh until enochian kills itself and the CD hasn't had tome to come off, effectively screwing yourself. Also you aren't factoring in the +80% to Af3 fires you might as well f4/1 burn till enochian drops.

Have they changed it? Tried blizz4 spamming just to see how the refresh worked back when I first got it (so maybe they've changed it since then), and it just didn't refresh.

So you pop enochian, and spam b4, it doesn't do anything besides damage until the duration is 25 seconds or less, then refreshes to 25. Then does nothing til 20 seconds or less, etc.

b4 spamming still isn't a good idea, just wanted to clarify the mechanic.